


Guardian

by MinervaFan



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-31
Updated: 2011-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-19 22:52:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/206090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinervaFan/pseuds/MinervaFan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In this world, there are few true heroes.  I know, because I have destroyed them all, when they did not do it for me.  Why, then, does this tiny, fragile woman cause me to feel something new?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Guardian

**Author's Note:**

> This piece is somewhat experimental for me. It is told completely from the viewpoint of an alien Sarah Jane encounters. While Sarah Jane and the kids are mentioned, they do not actually utter a single line in the story. Just a heads up.

In this small, small world, there are few true heroes. I know this, because I've been picking them off, one by watery one, for many, many centuries. With swords they have come, with rocks and sticks and muskets, each more brave and stupid than the one before.

I ground them into bits without ever having to pick my teeth of their remains.

By the time I met this one, this lipstick-carrying would-be heroine, I had grown tired of this dullard called Planet Earth. Generation after generation of apes had tried, and failed, to quell my hunger for destruction. But this one, Sarah Jane Smith….

I barely recognized the feeling with it came. So long had passed without any hint of it shadowing my days that I had lost its scent. It was some time, after numerous exposures to the tiny woman, an elder of the tribe, before I acknowledged the feeling for what it truly was--interest.

She interested me.

How many millennia had it been since anything or anyone interested me? And yet here she was, by age and by gender one of the defenseless ones of her kind, ready to take on any and all who would threaten her planet. The Bane shivered and crumbled before her; family Slitheen fell to her cleverness time and again (how wrong are those that believe foolishness is the sole domain of the human animal). So many failed to conquer this seemingly insignificant female human, eventually, that my eyes were opened, creaking and slow, to gaze upon her fully.

She is a small thing, really. Small and fragile and easily snapped in two. Her face is creased with age, yet she retains the fitness and activity of the youth of her kind. No brighter than the best of this planet, but still she glows with…something.

Time?

Space?

There are others here, scattered about the planet, who bear the shimmer of time and space. Few and far between, they scuttle through their lives, passing as normal to the blind ones of their tribe, hidden to the oblivious eyes of those who know nothing of such things.

But I am old and timeless. I know them, each of them, by name. I watch them, and keep them under tabs. But this one…this one surprises me. This one, this Sarah Jane, does not blend, nor does she try. She does not seek attention. She fights and she saves and she protects. She scavenges the technology of her betters and uses it for her world.

She is clever.

I, however, am far more clever. Long have I lived on this Earth, and long have I watched its life struggle toward sentience. In the end, that which takes all her kind will take her, and she will be gone.

Another feeling, equally odd and almost forgotten, occurs at that thought--regret. I will miss her when she dies.

I will miss her when I must destroy her, as I have done so many of her predecessors.

The human with the younglings, the old woman with the lipstick--she will be missed when I wipe her from this world. Perhaps I shall be gentle with her. Perhaps it will not hurt as I crush her.

Or perhaps it will….

This race is not ready, not nearly ready for the treasures it pursues. My work, my sacrifice, is clear. Since time was born, I too have protected, Sarah Jane Smith. From those who would strike out, without the wisdom or presence to understand what they do. To keep the cauldron of evolution in check until the broth is stew and not a moment before.

Sarah Jane. I would whisper to you, if your brain had evolved enough to hear my words. I would whisper to you words of apology, perhaps, or curses of understanding. Oh, little old Sarah Jane, how would you react to the truth of your world? How would you cry out, gnash your teeth and wail as the warriors of your past did when confronted by the wholeness of me?

You seek the stars, tiny human, and dream of glory. You seek the universe, without ever realizing what that means.

The cruelest fate I could condemn upon you would be understanding.

It drove your predecessors to madness. I think I would find it curious, watching you dissolve into insanity at the true understanding of your place in the scheme of things.

Never before has a species gone so far on so little, girded only by the force of its own egotistical self-impression.

You've seen much, little Sarah. You've gone far for one of your species. And you threaten to teach others, the younglings in your care. You are a threat. Not to me. None of you threaten me. But to yourself, and to the world you so desperately desire to protect.

How would you react, dear Sarah Jane, were you to know that the greatest threat to humanity is not Dalek or Cyberman or Silence, but you. You and those like you. The brave. The clever. The innovative.

I would weep for you. Maybe I will anyway. That might be interesting. Weeping.

But I have my task and my duties to perform. Once, this charge brought me great joy. Now it is a chore, an obligation.

They called me dragon, before, demon and monster and devil and god. But they never saw the essence of my purpose.

You see, perhaps, Sarah Jane Smith?

Do you see the truth?

I hear you at my borders, knocking on the walls, trying to get in. I see you, with your younglings, frightened, determined, brave.

I feel the love within you. Love for your younglings. Love for your planet and all its flawed and forgettable souls. I feel it...

I feel.

This is wrong.

This is...surprise.

I feel it, Sarah Jane Smith, and it surprises me.

You surprise me.

The knocking is louder. The knocking thunders. I do not understand.

What are you doing, fragile young old woman? What are you playing at?

Another feeling. Another memory, so old I had forgotten it even existed. I can feel it, behind the thundering knocks, behind the fear and surprise. I can feel it, Sarah Jane Smith of Planet Earth.

Freedom.

The chains are gone. For the first time in eons, the chains are gone.

I am....free.

What is this? You have broken through my barriers, far more than the knights and warriors and barons of your past have ever managed. You hold me vulnerable in your hands, my destruction at your whim.

And yet you exhibit…mercy? Compassion.

I sense it. Compassion for your betters, compassion for those who would crush you to dust.

You are here now, small and fragile and breakable before me, with your younglings safely behind you. You stand strong, proud before me. Kindness...it is called kindness, the expression on your face.

You, Sarah Jane Smith, of all your kind. You are the first. You are the only.

Perhaps my time here is done. Perhaps my freedom is won at last. Perhaps, Sarah Jane Smith, you prove for the human race what my masters feared would never come has finally arrived.

Evolution.

Transformation.

Wisdom.

I am drawn upwards, giddy from the lightness of me, giddy from the ache of freedom. How long have I been chained here, watching, protecting the universe from these dangerous creatures with the fearsome potential? And now, now, I am free. Rescued by my prey, free at last to return to – where? Where is home?

Oh, the joys of unknowing! The joys of ignorance!

Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith, fragile breakable elder of her tribe. You have freed and condemned your world. I will no longer protect you from yourselves.

For good or for ill, you stand on your own now. As will I.

Thank you.


End file.
